Our amazing designer, Irwin Chen, coded the issue in HTML5 (same with absent 4); shitty browsers like Internet Explorer don't support HTML5, so please use an up-to-date, modern browser like Chrome, Firefox or Safari to experience the issue in all its loveliness.

If you're interested in the world of design, check out this interview with Irwin about poetry in the digital age. (Quote: "The ironic thing is that code IS poetry, and poetry is code. Programmers are just as anal about the significance of indentation as poets are, just as obsessive about syntax, and driven to tears by a misplaced comma or quotation mark. Programmers even put a more rigid constraint on the rendering of code than poets do, i.e., they only use monospaced fonts")

This is the first issue of absent that has consisted solely of unsolicited work. Every poem came straight from the old slush pile. I think this is awesome.

In other news, Tim Jones-Yelvington was kind enough to point me to this pop song by "an all Asian American rap pop group." Enjoy!